The Yosemite

Chapter 4
Snow Banners

But it is on the mountain tops, when they are laden with loose, dry snow
and swept by a gale from the north, that the most magnificent storm
scenery is displayed. The peaks along the axis of the Range are then
decorated with resplendent banners, some of them more than a mile long,
shining, streaming, waving with solemn exuberant enthusiasm as if
celebrating some surpassingly glorious event.

The snow of which these banners are made falls on the high Sierra in
most extravagant abundance, sometimes to a depth of fifteen or twenty
feet, coming from the fertile clouds not in large angled flakes such as
one oftentimes sees in Yosemite, seldom even in complete crystals, for
many of the starry blossoms fall before they are ripe, while most of
those that attain perfect development as six-petaled flowers are more
or less broken by glinting and chafing against one another on the
way down to their work. This dry frosty snow is prepared for the grand
banner-waving celebrations by the action of the wind. Instead of at
once finding rest like that which falls into the tranquil depths of
the forest, it is shoved and rolled and beaten against boulders and
out-jutting rocks, swirled in pits and hollows like sand in river
pot-holes, and ground into sparkling dust. And when storm winds find
this snow-dust in a loose condition on the slopes above the timber-line
they toss it flack into the sky and sweep it onward from peak to peak
in the form of smooth regular banners, or in cloudy drifts, according
to the velocity and direction of the wind, and the conformation of the
slopes over which it is driven. While thus flying through the air a
small portion escapes from the mountains to the sky as vapor; but far
the greater part is at length locked fast in bossy overcurling cornices
along the ridges, or in stratified sheets in the glacier cirques, some
of it to replenish the small residual glaciers and remain silent and
rigid for centuries before it is finally melted and sent singing down
home to the sea.

But, though snow-dust and storm-winds abound on the mountains, regular
shapely banners are, for causes we shall presently see, seldom produced.
During the five winters that I spent in Yosemite I made many excursions
to high points above the walls in all kinds of weather to see what was
going on outside; from all my lofty outlooks I saw only one banner-storm
that seemed in every way perfect. This was in the winter of 1873, when
the snow-laden peaks were swept by a powerful norther. I was awakened
early in the morning by a wild storm-wind and of course I had to make
haste to the middle of the Valley to enjoy it. Rugged torrents and
avalanches from the main wind-flood overhead were roaring down the side
cañons and over the cliffs, arousing the rocks and the trees and the
streams alike into glorious hurrahing enthusiasm, shaking the whole
Valley into one huge song. Yet inconceivable as it must seem even to
those who love all Nature's wildness, the storm was telling its story
on the mountains in still grander characters.

A Wonderful Winter Scene

I had long been anxious to study some points in the structure of the
ice-hill at the foot of the Upper Yosemite Fall, but, as I have already
explained, blinding spray had hitherto prevented me from getting
sufficiently near it. This morning the entire body of the Fall was
oftentimes torn into gauzy strips and blown horizontally along the face
of the cliff, leaving the ice-hill dry; and while making my way to the
top of Fern Ledge to seize so favorable an opportunity to look down its
throat, the peaks of the Merced group came in sight over the shoulder of
the South Dome, each waving a white glowing banner against the dark blue
sky, as regular in form and firm and fine in texture as if it were made
of silk. So rare and splendid a picture, of course, smothered everything
else and I at once began to scramble and wallow up the snow-choked
Indian Cañon to a ridge about 8000 feet high, commanding a general
view of the main summits along the axis of the Range, feeling assured I
should find them bannered still more gloriously; nor was I in the least
disappointed. I reached the top of the ridge in four or five hours, and
through an opening in the woods the most imposing wind-storm effect I
ever beheld came full in sight; unnumbered mountains rising sharply
into the cloudless sky, their bases solid white their sides plashed with
snow, like ocean rocks with foam, and on every summit a magnificent
silvery banner, from two thousand to six thousand feet in length,
slender at the point of attachment, and widening gradually until about
a thousand or fifteen hundred feet in breadth, and as shapely and as
substantial looking in texture as the banners of the finest silk, all
streaming and waving free and clear in the sun-glow with nothing to blur
the sublime picture they made.

Fancy yourself standing beside me on this Yosemite Ridge. There is a
strange garish glitter in the air and the gale drives wildly overhead,
but you feel nothing of its violence, for you are looking out through a
sheltered opening in the woods, as through a window. In the immediate
foreground there is a forest of silver fir their foliage warm
yellow-green, and the snow beneath them strewn with their plumes,
plucked off by the storm; and beyond broad, ridgy, cañon-furrowed,
dome-dotted middle ground, darkened here and there with belts of pines,
you behold the lofty snow laden mountains in glorious array, waving
their banners with jubilant enthusiasm as if shouting aloud for joy.
They are twenty miles away, but you would not wish them nearer, for
every feature is distinct and the whole wonderful show is seen in its
right proportions, like a painting on the sky.

And now after this general view, mark how sharply the ribs and
buttresses and summits of the mountains are defined, excepting the
portions veiled by the banners; how gracefully and nobly the banners
are waving in accord with the throbbing of the wind flood; how trimly
each is attached to the very summit of its peak like a streamer at a
mast-head; how bright and glowing white they are, and how finely their
fading fringes are penciled on the sky! See how solid white and opaque
they are at the point of attachment and how filmy and translucent toward
the end, so that the parts of the peaks past which they are streaming
look dim as if seen through a veil of ground glass. And see how some of
the longest of the banners on the highest peaks are streaming perfectly
free from peak to peak across intervening notches or passes, while
others overlap and partly hide one another.

As to their formation, we find that the main causes of the wondrous
beauty and perfection of those we are looking at are the favorable
direction and force of the wind, the abundance of snow-dust, and the
form of the north sides of the peaks. In general, the north sides are
concave in both their horizontal and vertical sections, having been
sculptured into this shape by the residual glaciers that lingered in
the protecting northern shadows, while the sun-beaten south sides,
having never been subjected to this kind of glaciation, are convex or
irregular. It is essential, therefore, not only that the wind should
move with great velocity and steadiness to supply a sufficiently copious
and continuous stream of snow-dust, but that it should come from the
north. No perfect banner is ever hung on the Sierra peaks by the south
wind. Had the gale today blown from the south, leaving the other
conditions unchanged, only swirling, interfering, cloudy drifts would
have been produced; for the snow, instead of being spouted straight up
and over the tops of the peaks in condensed currents to be drawn out as
streamers, would have been driven over the convex southern slopes from
peak to peak like white pearly fog.

It appears, therefore, that shadows in great part determine not only the
forms of lofty ice mountains, but also those of the snow banners that
the wild winds hang upon them.

Earthquake Storms

The avalanche taluses, leaning against the walls at intervals of a mile
or two, are among the most striking and interesting of the secondary
features of the Valley. They are from about three to five hundred feet
high, made up of huge, angular, well-preserved, unshifting boulders, and
instead of being slowly weathered from the cliffs like ordinary taluses,
they were all formed suddenly and simultaneously by a great earthquake
that occurred at least three centuries ago. And though thus hurled into
existence in a few seconds or minutes, they are the least changeable of
all the Sierra soil-beds. Excepting those which were launched directly
into the channels of swift rivers, scarcely one of their wedged and
interlacing boulders has moved since the day of their creation; and
though mostly made up of huge blocks of granite, many of them from ten
to fifty feet cube, weighing thousands of tons with only a few small
chips, trees and shrubs make out to live and thrive on them and even
delicate herbaceous plants--draperia, collomia, zauschneria, etc.,
soothing and coloring their wild rugged slopes with gardens and groves.

I was long in doubt on some points concerning the origin of those
taluses. Plainly enough they were derived from the cliffs above them,
because they are of the size of scars on the wall, the rough angular
surface of which contrasts with the rounded, glaciated, unfractured
parts. It was plain, too, that instead of being made up of material
slowly and gradually weathered from the cliffs like ordinary taluses,
almost every one of them had been formed suddenly in a single avalanche,
and had not been increased in size during the last three or four
centuries, for trees three or four hundred years old are growing on
them, some standing at the top close to the wall without a bruise or
broken branch, showing that scarcely a single boulder had ever fallen
among them. Furthermore, all these taluses throughout the Range seemed
by the trees and lichens growing on them to be of the same age. All
the phenomena thus pointed straight to a grand ancient earthquake. But
for years I left the question open, and went on from cañon to cañon,
observing again and again; measuring the heights of taluses throughout
the Range on both flanks, and the variations in the angles of their
surface slopes; studying the way their boulders had been assorted and
related and brought to rest, and their correspondence in size with the
cleavage joints of the cliffs from whence they were derived, cautious
about making up my mind. But at last all doubt as to their formation
vanished.

At half-past two o'clock of a moonlit morning in March, I was awakened
by a tremendous earthquake, and though I had never before enjoyed a
storm of this sort, the strange thrilling motion could not be mistaken,
and I ran out of my cabin, both glad and frightened, shouting, "A noble
earthquake! A noble earthquake!" feeling sure I was going to learn
something. The shocks were so violent and varied, and succeeded one
another so closely, that I had to balance myself carefully in walking as
if on the deck of a ship among waves, and it seemed impossible that the
high cliffs of the Valley could escape being shattered. In particular,
I feared that the sheer-fronted Sentinel Rock, towering above my cabin,
would be shaken down, and I took shelter back of a large yellow pine,
hoping that it might protect me from at least the smaller outbounding
boulders. For a minute or two the shocks became more and more
violent--flashing horizontal thrusts mixed with a few twists and
battering, explosive, upheaving jolts,--as if Nature were wrecking her
Yosemite temple, and getting ready to build a still better one.

I was now convinced before a single boulder had fallen that earthquakes
were the talus-makers and positive proof soon came. It was a calm
moonlight night, and no sound was heard for the first minute or so, save
low, muffled, underground, bubbling rumblings, and the whispering and
rustling of the agitated trees, as if Nature were holding her breath.
Then, suddenly, out of the strange silence and strange motion there came
a tremendous roar. The Eagle Rock on the south wall, about a half a mile
up the Valley, gave way and I saw it falling in thousands of the great
boulders I had so long been studying, pouring to the Valley floor
in a free curve luminous from friction, making a terribly sublime
spectacle--an arc of glowing, passionate fire, fifteen hundred feet
span, as true in form and as serene in beauty as a rainbow in the midst
of the stupendous, roaring rock-storm. The sound was so tremendously
deep and broad and earnest, the whole earth like a living creature
seemed to have at last found a voice and to be calling to her sister
planets. In trying to tell something of the size of this awful sound it
seems to me that if all the thunder of all the storms had ever heard
were condensed into one roar it would not equal this rock-roar at the
birth of a mountain talus. Think, then, of the roar that arose to heaven
at the simultaneous birth of all the thousands of ancient cañon-taluses
throughout the length and breadth of the Range!

The first severe shocks were soon over, and eager to examine the
new-born talus I ran up the Valley in the moonlight and climbed upon it
before the huge blocks, after their fiery flight, had come to complete
rest. They were slowly settling into their places, chafing, grating
against one another, groaning, and whispering; but no motion was visible
except in a stream of small fragments pattering down the face of the
cliff. A cloud of dust particles, lighted by the moon, floated out
across the whole breadth of the Valley, forming a ceiling that lasted
until after sunrise, and the air was filled with the odor of crushed
Douglas spruces from a grove that had been mowed down and mashed like
weeds.

After the ground began to calm I ran across the meadow to the river to
see in what direction it was flowing and was glad to find that down
the Valley was still down. Its waters were muddy from portions of its
banks having given way, but it was flowing around its curves and over
its ripples and shallows with ordinary tones and gestures. The mud would
soon be cleared away and the raw slips on the banks would be the only
visible record of the shaking it suffered.

The Upper Yosemite Fall, glowing white in the moonlight, seemed to know
nothing of the earthquake, manifesting no change in form or voice, as
far as I could see or hear.

After a second startling shock, about half-past three o'clock, the
ground continued to tremble gently, and smooth, hollow rumbling sounds,
not always distinguishable from the rounded, bumping, explosive tones of
the falls, came from deep in the mountains in a northern direction.

The few Indians fled from their huts to the middle of the Valley,
fearing that angry spirits were trying to kill them; and, as I afterward
learned, most of the Yosemite tribe, who were spending the winter at
their village on Bull Creek forty miles away, were so terrified that
they ran into the river and washed themselves,--getting themselves clean
enough to say their prayers, I suppose, or to die. I asked Dick, one of
the Indians with whom I was acquainted, "What made the ground shake and
jump so much?" He only shook his head and said, "No good. No good," and
looked appealingly to me to give him hope that his life was to be
spared.

In the morning I found the few white settlers assembled in front of
the old Hutchings Hotel comparing notes and meditating light to the
lowlands, seemingly as sorely frightened as the Indians. Shortly after
sunrise a low, blunt, muffled rumbling, like distant thunder, was
followed by another series of shocks, which, though not nearly so severe
as the first, made the cliffs and domes tremble like jelly, and the big
pines and oaks thrill and swish and wave their branches with startling
effect. Then the talkers were suddenly hushed, and the solemnity on
their faces was sublime. One in particular of these winter neighbors, a
somewhat speculative thinker with whom I had open conversed, was a firm
believer in the cataclysmic origin of the Valley; and I now jokingly
remarked that his wild tumble-down-and-engulfment hypothesis might soon
be proved, since these underground rumblings and shakings might be the
forerunners of another Yosemite-making cataclysm, which would perhaps
double the depth of the Valley by swallowing the floor, leaving the ends
of the roads and trails dangling three or four thousand feet in the air.
Just then came the third series of shocks, and it was fine to see how
awfully silent and solemn he became. His belief in the existence of a
mysterious abyss, into which the suspended floor of the Valley and all
the domes and battlements of the walls might at any moment go roaring
down, mightily troubled him. To diminish his fears and laugh him into
something like reasonable faith, I said, "Come, cheer up; smile a little
and clap your hands, now that kind Mother Earth is trotting us on her
knee to amuse us and make us good." But the well-meant joke seemed
irreverent and utterly failed, as if only prayerful terror could rightly
belong to the wild beauty-making business. Even after all the heavier
shocks were over I could do nothing to reassure him, on the contrary,
he handed me the keys of his little store to keep, saying that with a
companion of like mind he was going to the lowlands to stay until the
fate of poor, trembling Yosemite was settled. In vain I rallied them on
their fears, calling attention to the strength of the granite walls of
our Valley home, the very best and solidest masonry in the world, and
less likely to collapse and sink than the sedimentary lowlands to which
they were looking for safety; and saying that in any case they sometime
would have to die, and so grand a burial was not to be slighted. But
they were too seriously panic-stricken to get comfort from anything I
could say.

During the third severe shock the trees were so violently shaken that
the birds flew out with frightened cries. In particular, I noticed two
robins flying in terror from a leafless oak, the branches of which
swished and quivered as if struck by a heavy battering-ram. Exceedingly
interesting were the flashing and quivering of the elastic needles of
the pines in the sunlight and the waving up and down of the branches
while the trunks stood rigid. There was no swaying, waving or swirling
as in wind-storms, but quick, quivering jerks, and at times the heavy
tasseled branches moved as if they had all been pressed down against the
trunk and suddenly let go, to spring up and vibrate until they came to
rest again. Only the owls seemed to be undisturbed. Before the rumbling
echoes had died away a hollow-voiced owl began to hoot in philosophical
tranquillity from near the edge of the new talus as if nothing
extraordinary had occurred, although, perhaps, he was curious to know
what all the noise was about. His "hoot-too-hoot-too-whoo" might have
meant, "what's a' the steer, kimmer?"

It was long before the Valley found perfect rest. The rocks trembled
more or less every day for over two months, and I kept a bucket of water
on my table to learn what I could of the movements. The blunt thunder
in the depths of the mountains was usually followed by sudden jarring,
horizontal thrusts from the northward, often succeeded by twisting,
upjolting movements. More than a month after the first great shock, when
I was standing on a fallen tree up the Valley near Lamon's winter cabin,
I heard a distinct bubbling thunder from the direction of Tenaya Cañon
Carlo, a large intelligent St. Bernard dog standing beside me seemed
greatly astonished, and looked intently in that direction with mouth
open and uttered a low Wouf! as if saying, "What's that?" He
must have known that it was not thunder, though like it. The air was
perfectly still, not the faintest breath of wind perceptible, and a
fine, mellow, sunny hush pervaded everything, in the midst of which came
that subterranean thunder. Then, while we gazed and listened, came the
corresponding shocks, distinct as if some mighty hand had shaken the
ground. After the sharp horizontal jars died away, they were followed
by a gentle rocking and undulating of the ground so distinct that Carlo
looked at the log on which he was standing to see who was shaking it. It
was the season of flooded meadows and the pools about me, calm as sheets
of glass, were suddenly thrown into low ruffling waves.

Judging by its effects, this Yosemite, or Inyo earthquake, as it is
sometimes called, was gentle as compared with the one that gave rise
to the grand talus system of the Range and did so much for the cañon
scenery. Nature, usually so deliberate in her operations, then created,
as we have seen, a new set of features, simply by giving the mountains
a shake--changing not only the high peaks and cliffs, but the streams.
As soon as these rock avalanches fell the streams began to sing new
songs; for in many places thousands of boulders were hurled into their
channels, roughening and half-damming them, compelling the waters to
surge and roar in rapids where before they glided smoothly. Some of
the streams were completely dammed; driftwood, leaves, etc., gradually
filling the interstices between the boulders, thus giving rise to lakes
and level reaches; and these again, after being gradually filled in,
were changed to meadows, through which the streams are now silently
meandering; while at the same time some of the taluses took the places
of old meadows and groves. Thus rough places were made smooth, and
smooth places rough. But, on the whole, by what at first sight seemed
pure confounded confusion and ruin, the landscapes were enriched; for
gradually every talus was covered with groves and gardens, and made a
finely proportioned and ornamental base for the cliffs. In this work of
beauty, every boulder is prepared and measured and put in its place more
thoughtfully than are the stones of temples. If for a moment you are
inclined to regard these taluses as mere draggled, chaotic dumps, climb
to the top of one of them, and run down without any haggling, puttering
hesitation, boldly jumping from boulder to boulder with even speed. You
will then find your feet playing a tune, and quickly discover the music
and poetry of these magnificent rock piles--a fine lesson; and all
Nature's wildness tells the same story--the shocks and outbursts of
earthquakes, volcanoes, geysers, roaring, thundering waves and floods,
the silent uprush of sap in plants, storms of every sort--each and all
are the orderly beauty-making love-beats of Nature's heart.